1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an interchangeable bottletop aerator that is removably engaged on top of a bottle to aerate a liquid such as different types of wine contained in the bottle while the liquid is being poured from the bottle.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The use of wine aerators is known in the prior art. Decanting as a means of aeration is as old as wine making. The old way of decanting wine in a vessel results in long wait periods and heterogeneous aeration of wine. Presently, more active means of decanting are performed by a plurality of aerators as well as old decanting containers. There exist several different configurations of aerators that are used external to the bottle, sit on the neck of the bottle and even inside the bottle. The self-standing aerators are the most common designs. They require using two hands or a separate stand to stabilize the aeration chamber above a wine glass like the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,614,614 to Sabadicci et al. Further iterations of the same concept are disclosed as glass top versions in the example disclosures of U.S. Pat. No. 8,196,906 to Benton et al., U.S. Pat. App. Nos. 2011/0271846 A1 to Hynes and 2012/0201942 A1 to Kilduff et al. The wine pouring process in all these similar designs is not regulated and left to the user, frequently resulting in sub-optimal aeration and spillage. The articulated wine aerator of U.S. Pat. App. No 2012/0012718 A1 to Tiso attempts to facilitate an easier way to use aerators by means of an attachment to the containment bottle. The nonstandard outside dimensions of bottles makes this also a less than ideal solution. Example designs of bottletop aerators are disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 8,011,540 B1 of Peckels, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,205,541 B2 of Barberio et al. These designs consist of complicated multi piece assemblies that are difficult to clean and expensive to produce. The bottletop design that is disclosed in U.S. Pat. App. No 2012/0074092 A1 of Devoy et al. would be difficult to reuse and limited in the aeration effectiveness.
Despite the multitude of existing different designs and disclosures, there is a need in the art to improve the shortcomings of these apparatus for a bottletop aerator device to better control the aeration process of various liquids.
Notwithstanding the number of aerators and designs that have been produced, none consist of two pieces which are interchangeably engaged together to form a modular aerating mechanism that is easily altered accordingly for different wines and liquids, easy to clean, easy to produce and use on a bottletop design that is used single-handedly.